


handle with care

by The_Wonderful_Jinx



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Canon Dialogue, Gen, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Unsoundiversary 2020, emotionally constipated richard strand, featuring: The Hotel Conversation in 1x07, mixed with some non canon dialogue, stragan if you squint, strand submitting to mortifying ordeal of being know, this time -strand- is the one preventing bad decisions being made for the both of them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:08:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23795893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wonderful_Jinx/pseuds/The_Wonderful_Jinx
Summary: If he knows what’s good for him, he has to put an end to this.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	handle with care

**Author's Note:**

  * For [remembertowrite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/remembertowrite/gifts).



V.

Dr. Richard Strand does not believe in ‘love at first sight’. He sees the concept of it, the dream of it, as childish, sickeningly saccharine and disingenuous. For a man like Strand – where tragedy seemingly haunts his every step – he’s learned to keep his expectations low and his hopes lower. After Coralee, ‘hope’ is a powerful, dangerous word along with ‘love’, ‘trust’, and ‘belief’.

But the moment he first sees Miss Reagan, he knows it to be an unforgettable sight comparable to Big Sur and aurora borealis: her striding through his office door with her head held high, sporting a ‘hit me with your best shot’ smile, and a gleam in her eyes that betray her desire for a good story.

(In the best and the worst of times, this image of Miss Reagan will be preserved in his head and in his heart like an insect in amber. If he had any talent for paint or marble, he’d use her as inspiration and call the piece ‘The Harbinger of Change’.)

She reminds him a lot like himself when he was younger, chomping at the bit searching for truth and meaning behind paranormal phenomena. He hates seeing himself reflected in this woman, her energy crackling like an approaching lightning storm that he once had and lost. He hates her confidence, her charm, her eagerness to be in the same space as he is and talk to him.

Who in their right mind would be eager to talk to Dr. Richard Strand – the man who ferrets out liars, hoaxes, and con men; the one who has made enemies with just about every academic, scholar, and professional in this already esoteric field? Definitely not some radio host/journalist from PNWS, that’s for sure. But he humors her, rewards her persistence with a meeting. After 11 phone calls and countless emails, he has the cold comfort in knowing that she’s at least serious in her endeavor.

If Miss Reagan has any sense, she’d turn right around and forget all about him, leave him to his lonesome once again. But she doesn’t. She stays. She she’s curious and willing to listen, everything he could hope for in an audience, but she’s head-strong and willful. On the surface, Miss Reagan appears charmed by his practiced ‘Isn’t there enough beauty in the world’ speech. But he sees her crossed arms and an all too familiar gaze, the ‘Stop jacking off and get to the point’ glare he himself has given to countless male academics.

The fact she’s bold enough, _brave_ enough, to give him that look is promising. It means he has to put effort into proving his point. When she shows up a second time -- when he _lets_ her in a second time -- he takes down Dumont’s sloppy attempt of fleecing Miss Reagan, albeit with more flourish and showmanship than needed. And when she persists on seeing what he has kept hidden in his supply closet for years, he does the unthinkable and relents. He shows her.

Miss Reagan does something worse than finding the black tapes, worse than the pain she will put him through in the future, worse than worming her way into his presence and his life, she gives him hope.

IV.

Miss Reagan is a walking conundrum. One moment she is charming and sensitive and in the next, shockingly, destructively blunt and tone-deaf. Both never fail to catch him off guard. She could be a black tape on her own right, if it wasn’t for the simple fact that she is human and no person is completely, perfectly aware how their words may sound to other people.

Still, the whiplash between the two dichotomies hurts. Right now, he’s nursing another wound caused by Miss Reagan with a cup of herbal tea and isolation in his darkened office.

She’s a scalpel and a sledgehammer with her words, getting out secrets or getting on his nerves with unmatched skill. Most people avoid Strand in fear of being academically or verbally torn a new one. Miss Reagan – bravely, fearlessly, foolishly – does not. Before he even realizes it, she’s got him backed into a corner: Coralee’s disappearance brought back to the public eye, him vanishing for five days, the assault on the psychic, his daughter disowning him. One by one, skeletons he thought long decayed in the closet, yanked out in stellar condition, and brought to light for all to hear. 

“How dare you,” he mutters, warming his hands on the worn-out mug. “How dare you make me look fallible? How fucking dare you...”

He can leave. “Leave while the leaving is good,” as his mother would say. (Pity she didn’t follow her own advice when it concerned his father.) Oh yes, he can leave and he has every right to do so. It would be so easy – one phone call or a singular email and it would be done with. He knows what will happen if this continues: more of his unsavory past will be unearthed, more unbearable and uncomfortable conversations with Miss Reagan, more wounds to be made.

Deep down, in the complicated web that is his emotional well-being, Strand looks forward to it in a strange, masochist manner, like how some people enjoy slowly cruising by the aftermath of a car crash. The thought that she of all people can cut through the red tape and unveil the ‘real Dr. Richard Strand’ fills him with giddy, frightened enthusiasm. He laughs, hard and hollow, hot tea spilling over the edges of his mug and burning his fingers.

Strand doesn’t throw down the gauntlet, he instead tosses her the proverbial shovel. 

“Well, Miss Reagan,” he says out loud to the empty office as if she was with him, hiding in the dark corners of the room. He hopes that she is, it would certainly be an interesting turn. “If you want to dig into my past, then dig. Be my guest, enjoy it while it lasts…”

III.

Dr. Strand doesn’t care what people think of him in general, but he hates being looked at. That isn’t to say he has stage fright; he can take on a full lecture hall or hours at a symposium without breaking a sweat. Ask anyone on the street what Dr. Richard Strand looks like, you’d get the usual choir of ‘WASP academic’, ‘hot professor from Hell’, and ‘pretentious asshole’. And for the most part, he’s perfectly fine with those descriptions. The more they focus on the tailored surface, the less likely they are to dig. Quick to judge him, quick to overlook him. Just the way he likes.

No, it’s the looks of the more curious, the more perceptive folks that he despises. Their needling eyes, the sharp ‘you got something to hide, but what’ expression they all sport. It’s why he hopes Dumont, Abruzzi, Savorski, and Braun never team up for any reason. If they ever get together and pool their brain cells -- “What little they got to begin with,” he thinks with a self-satisfied smirk over a well-made jab – they would figure him out in a heartbeat.

Strand doesn’t want to be studied or to be known. He just wants to be admired and respected. Adored and praised by everyone and anyone who’ll hear and accept the good word of skepticism. Alex Reagan, the one person whom he wants to believe in him wholesale, the one person he’s making the effort to impress, isn’t falling for it. As quick as Alex is to unearthing his past; she too is keen on getting past his press statements and his carefully curated biography on the institute’s web-page. Of course, _she_ wouldn’t be fooled by his posturing, not for long at least, he’d be doing her a disservice to say otherwise.

Nonetheless, he still cares how she views him, not just in the way a curious radio host sees a subject. He wants her to only see – no, he _needs_ her to see – the Dr. Richard Strand with the wry grins, the three-piece suits, and the cleverer-than-thou gaze, and the cool blue eyes. He _needs_ her to see the confident man at the lectern, composed and measured; the scholar at his desk with empirical evidence; the investigator armed with science, rational thinking, and sharp eyes.

He needs her to see the image he spent years cultivating, what all his hard work and past suffering amounted to. He doesn’t want her to see the man afraid of food poisoning, he doesn’t want her to see his mistakes and weaknesses. He doesn’t want her to see how he failed as a friend, a son, a brother, a father, and husband. He doesn’t want to lose control.

“See me; _validate_ me, but please don’t _look_ at me. You won’t like what you will find.”

But when Alex does look at him, like right now as they’re in line for coffee, it’s…well, it’s different. He knows what it isn’t; it’s not needling or prodding, neither is it one of admiration, respect, adoration, or praise. It’s contemplative. Dare he say, it’s tender.

She doesn’t turn away or blush in embarrassment. Her gaze is steady and sure.

“What do you think you will get?” he says silently with narrowed eyes and crossed arms.

She shrugs her shoulders as if she read his mind. “You,” her warm smile says, “Just you.”

II.

This is how Dr. Strand falls in love with Alex Reagan: unexpectedly and painfully, the way men who think they’ll never love again often do.

I.

Sebastian Torres has been missing for two days, kidnapped according to the police and his mother. He and Alex have been called down by police chief Collins, who looks like he’s just itching to charge them even though they did nothing wrong. The fact Collins mistrusts him and Alex, but it willing to work with the likes of Braun speaks volumes on his character.

Tannis _fucking_ Braun. Of course, that fucker would show up. He has the uncanny ability to arrive when it’s most inconvenient for Strand. If he had made this by himself, he wouldn’t have minded. He could handle Braun like one handles a gatecrashing, unwanted guest – with quiet, dignified contempt. But no. Alex had to be with him and Braun just happened to cross their paths. Perfect _fucking_ timing.

Somehow, Braun charms Alex in a way Strand could not and cannot replicate. The rapport between them is immediate; old friends meeting after years of separation. Braun intrigues her; and she is another mark. His conman charisma and her want of a good story feed off of one another.

“ _He isn’t special_ ,” he thinks bitterly, pacing around his hotel room, trying to find something to occupy his time. By ‘he’, he means Braun. (Though a more perceptive person would be forgiven in thinking Strand is talking about himself.) Yesterday, Braun had invited Alex to search the park with him. Richard had been politely snubbed from this outing. And all of yesterday and today, that is all Alex can talk about.

“ _It’s her job to be friendly and personable. She can have chemistry with a wet paper bag…_ ” Strand almost entertains the idea of Alex having chemistry with him, but he isn’t that bold or cocky. He won’t deign to say he’s jealous. Jealousy implies he has lost. And he hasn’t lost. Losing implies he had a chance with her to begin with.

The door connecting their rooms is propped open with an ancient, yellowing telephone book and a bible. It’s only closed when they’re asleep. They have an unspoken trust that they don’t enter the other’s room while they are absent.

The landline phone in her room rings and goes to the answering machine. It’s Nic. Strand begins to count.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

And not a second later, his cellphone rings.

“Hello, Mr. Silver,” he says, coming off more ‘crochety’ than ‘professionally distant’ as he usually with Alex’s producer. Nic doesn’t comment on it.

“Hey Dr. Strand, Alex isn’t picking up her phone or answering my message. I figured she’s with you?”

“She went out for a run, said she wanted to clear her head,” he replies.

Nic sighs in relief. “Alright, sounds like an Alex thing to do,” he replies. “Sorry, with the whole Sebastian thing, we’re just a touch jumpy over here.”

The fact Nic called him and automatically assumed Alex was with him makes him smile, a bit of pride and ego restored. “She should be back in an hour or so. I’ll let you know you called. Do you want me to pass a message to her?”

“Oh, thank you, but it’s business related. It’s not urgent, but I do need to hear from her sometime today.”

“Duly noted, Nic. Have a good day.”

“You too, Doctor.”

Goodbyes said, Strand hangs up. He looks at her door, expecting – hoping – for her to storm though with a newfound hatred for Tannis Braun. That’s how all the best friendships are made, through mutual hatred of shared enemies. Desperation also helps.

But the door remains closed. She’s only been gone for half an hour. Her average runs last for an hour. For runs where she needs to clear her head or brainstorm, sometimes two. She goes for distance and endurance than speed.

With a heavy sigh, he sinks into his chair and opens up his laptop, hoping to find something to keep his mind occupied and his eyes off the clock.

Alex’s return is marked by a fresh burst of warm August air and a slice of burnt orange sunlight cutting across the floor.

“I’m back!” she says with her signature toothy grin, a tell-tale sign she’s brimming with dangerous ideas and plans. With the sun behind her, golden and glowing, it looks like she has a halo.

“Nic called,” he says, quickly hunching over his laptop and the sorry excuse of a table to hide the fact he’s burning up inside. He doesn’t know what’s worse: that he’s envious of Braun of all people, or that he has these feelings in the first place. He knows his anger is misplaced and childish. Braun is merely a two-bit, pseudoscientific conman with celebrity donors and good publicity. There will be another con-artist to take Braun’s place when he falls out of favor. Braun has nothing Strand wants, except that hours with Alex in the park.

His hands tremor as he types. He isn’t doing any actual work or writing; he’s just trying to look busy so not to rouse her suspicions. While he can’t see her, he can hear her: the footfalls as she paces around her room; her call to Nic (“Sorry for leaving you on read, Nic. I was in the middle of a run. Yeah, totally off the cuff and unplanned, but I needed to think and unwind a bit."); the squeaking closet door as she pulls out a change of clothes; a cursory jingle of a mobile game being played, the shower running and her humming a jaunty tune as she rinses the day off.

The connecting door stays open throughout.

He’s going through his emails when he notices her leaning on the doorway. She’s dressed in a baggy white t-shirt, black jeans, and white sneakers. Her short, still-wet hair sticks up wildly like she gave up trying to bring it to order. She waves her cellphone, alerting him that it’s recording.

“May I come in?” she says.

“You may,” he says.

Like you need to ask, he thinks. She crosses the threshold without hesitation.

“I know what you’re gonna say, I can quote it line for line, but humor me for a second: Tannis Braun’s bi-locating sounds an awful life the Simon Reese situation,” she says, setting her phone on the table. She walks over to the window and opens the curtains, letting more of the sunset into the room. “Much better,” she says with a satisfied nod.

“Tannis Braun and Simon Reese have a lot in common,” he says dryly.

She sits down at the table, sporting a bemused smirk. “You don’t like him.”

“Who? Simon?” he replies. “It’s hard to like a person who killed their parents.”

“You know who I mean,” she says, misconstruing his genuine confusion for playing dumb.

He laughs nervously. To their listeners, they would think he is just toying with Alex, being his usual purposely evasive self. They would not see the flash of concern on Alex’s face or his apologetic look. The blessing of a non-visual medium.

“I don’t…not like him,” he replies, hoping the mask of neutrality hides his jealousy and the lie. He doesn’t merely ‘dislike’ Tannis Braun, he loathes him. “He’s a fraud and a con-artist. He skews his ‘evidence’ and promotes false information.”

Alex doesn’t press further, letting the subject go with a sigh.

“Well, all that running did a number on me. I’m starving. Are you hungry?”

“I could eat,” he replies, grateful for an easy out of a difficult conversation topic. “The hotel provided me with menus of local eateries. It’s on the counter, I’ll grab them.”

She waves him off and gets up. Anticipating a large meal and her company, he grabs his leather book bag and unzips it, slipping in his laptop to clear off space.

“Italian, seafood, pub grub, Mexican, or fast food,” she lists off, “Which one tickles your fancy?”

“Take out Italian…?” he says. Alex shrugs.

“Hey, if done right and delivered promptly, it’s not too shabby,” she replies with the gravitas of someone who has experience. “The Italian deli near the studio delivers, and you eat their food without complaint.”

“They only deliver because the owner has a crush on you,” he replies grimly. “That poor deluded man.”

Alex gives him a sly look. “If you go snitching and ruin the studio’s discount Friday lunches, I will personally drag you out of bed and make you run laps with me in the crack of dawn.”

“Oh the _horror_ ,” he says in mock fear that makes her burst out in laughter.

“Look,” she says when she recovers, “I’m craving pasta and shit ton of garlic bread, you in or not?”

He raises his hands up in defeat. “The fate of my stomach is in your hands, Alex,” he says. She smiles.

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,” she chides. He tosses her a pen and she begin circling DOIs (Dishes of Interest, one of many acronyms penned by PNWS staff that he has picked up) and calculating the cost on a memo pad. They’ve had enough meals together that she knows what he likes: bread-sticks, calamari, and a heaping cut of lasagna.

“Alex, did you…enjoy the park yesterday?” he says.

“I did, actually, it was beautiful,” she replies.

“Good…great…”

“I do wish you could’ve come, would’ve liked to see you testing and prodding Braun’s methods and claims. Think our listeners would’ve liked that to balance out his self-promotion.”

He sighs wistfully. The scene before him is a sight for the ages: the way she’s seated on the kitchenette counter with their take-out order in hand; his pen tucked behind her ear; the small, conspiratorial smile of hers; the setting sun bathing her in its golden light; the fan running on high to combat the late summer heat ruffling her hair.

What he would give to preserve this moment. He’d dip it gold, capture it on film, trap it in amber, make it into something tangible he could hold on to. A souvenir to remind him that it was real and he bore witness to it. It would be a secret he could keep for himself and no one else.

It looks good. It feels good. It feels _right_. After years of solitude, company like her is long overdue and a welcome change of pace. It doesn’t feel like a room in a hotel, it doesn’t have the transient, liminal quality in the air. With Alex here, right now, it feels… _domestic_.

“ _I could come home to you…_ ” he thinks.

There are only a few paces between them. He just needs to pluck up the courage to get up, toss aside all worries and inhibitions, cross the line and…and…

Common sense crawls out of the dark and grapples him like a tentacled, eldritch beast of Lovecraft’s racist-fueled design. And once it has him, once he comes to his senses and understands the implications and the potential disaster, he curses himself for his impulsiveness.

“ _Stop_ ,” he thinks, though every cell in his body is screaming otherwise like some Greek choir, urging him to act.

“ _This could be you chance, your_ only _chance_ ,” they keen. 

Perhaps he is thinking too loud, perhaps it’s a trick of the light or apophenia. But when she turns to look at him, her expression is soft and tender. Dare he say, it’s almost _inviting_ him to come closer.

It is beautiful. _Alex_ is beautiful. And he _wants_.

Oh, how he wants.

But he can’t. This meant for him. He doesn't deserve it, doesn't feel worthy of it. Somehow, in some way, as it did with Coralee and everything else in his life, it will break. _Maybe_ they can make it work and it will last for a few months, _maybe_ a couple years. But it _will_ break in the end. If he knows what’s good for him, he has to put an end to this. One by one, he takes each fanciful thought and fantasy and puts them to the fire. All the while, she’s looking at him expectantly. As if she’s reading his mind and daring him to action. Daring him to try. 

(‘ _It’s just the sunlight,'_ he thinks. Rational as always. )

Dr. Strand doesn’t believe in love at first sight or in ghosts. But the faint smile on her lips is as lovely as it is haunting, like a forest before it is burned down.

“Are you going to keep recording or…?” he says. Alex laughs.

“Oh, right.”

She looks dejected.

(‘ _It’s just apophenia_.’)

She looks disappointed.

(‘ _We see what we want to see_.’)

She slips off the counter and makes her way her way back to the table. Her cell phone rings, startling them both. She nearly drops her phone in surprise and she scrambles to answer it.

“Hello?”

He watches her face morph into a variety of expression: curiosity, joy, relief.

“Thank you,” she says and ends the call. “They found Sebastian. He was in an abandoned cabin in the park, Tannis is going to do a reading first thing in the morning, he wants me to tag along.”

Reality asserts itself in the room: the sunset darkens with the clouds moving in, the domestic air of his room is choked out by the humidity and the rattling fan struggling in the fight. 

"You're going?"

"Yeah, I think it'll be good for the show," she replies. 

Oh yes, it would be. Sensational and spine-tingling. That's the Alex Reagan he knows, the consummate show-woman: making magic out of nothing, spinning stories into gold, making skeptics fall in love...

He wouldn't be good for her, he reasons with himself. Not in the long run. 

“I’ll…uh, I’ll go get the food,” she says, her body language -- shuffling feet, slumped shoulders, body turned to the door -- screaming how nervous she is around him. He doesn't blame her. He hasn't felt comfortable with himself for years. She doesn't know how lucky she is. He envies her. 

“Okay,” he replies. 

It’s almost dark when she returns -- he half expected her to ditch him and drive back to Seattle. She carrying two bags heavy with food. An obscene amount of bread, garlic, and sauce waft through the air. 

“Would you like to eat with me?” she says, her eyes hopeful. 

“I have some work to catch up on,” he says dismissively, falling back into his old habits. 

With a sigh, she puts his share of food on the table, then returns to her room. She lingers briefly at the doorway, as if considering to look back on him. She decides against it and disappears around the corner. She leaves the connecting door wide open.

Strand ignores his dinner and walks over to the door. He loathes to do it, but he must. For his sake and for her’s.

Dr. Richard Strand closes the door and locks her out. 

**Author's Note:**

> -shows up after another hiatus drinking homemade coffee because I can't go out for Dunkins- 
> 
> Happy Unsoundiversary everyone~!


End file.
